Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, presidenta del Comité de Asuntos Exteriores de la Cámara de Estados Unidos, manifestó el miércoles en un comunicado, que la situación de derechos humanos en China continúa deteriorándose.
La congresista señaló que en China, la represión y la coerción, particularmente contra organizaciones y personas involucradas en la defensa de los derechos humanos y asuntos de interés público son hechos rutinarios.
Ros-Lehtinen dijo que en este país asiático, la tortura, la desaparición de disidentes y la falta de libertad de expresión no son hechos aislados. “La libertad de expresión, por supuesto, se está perdiendo completamente detrás de la cortina de bamboo en la China comunista”, indicó.
La legisladora manifestó que los tentáculos de la seguridad del Estado china algunas veces traspasan sus fronteras, tras mencionar que el activista chino Chen Guangcheng, quien originalmente había aceptado una invitación para declarar hoy ante el Comité de Asuntos Exteriores en Washington declinó hacerlo por temor a represalias contra su familia en China, especialmente contra su sobrino quien se encuentra arrestado.
Entretanto, el secretario de Estado adjunto Michael Posner declaró a la prensa este miércoles, que “nuestro mensaje al gobierno chino es, ustedes han hecho progresos en el frente económico, ha llegado el momento de que abran un espacio para permitir que las personas disientan”.
NEWS
House Foreign Affairs Committee
U.S. House of Representatives
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chairman
CONTACT: Brad Goehner, (202) 225-5021
Alex Cruz (South Florida press), (202) 225-8200
http://foreignaffairs.house.gov
For IMMEDIATE Release – July 25, 2012
Human Rights Conditions in China Continue to Decline, Ros-Lehtinen Says
(WASHINGTON) – U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, made the following opening statement today at a Full Committee hearing titled “Investigating the Chinese Threat, Part Two: Human Rights Abuses, Torture and Disappearances.” The Committee received testimony from prominent dissidents and activists on human rights abuses committed by the Chinese regime. For witness testimony, please click here. Opening statement by Ros-Lehtinen:
“This hearing is called just one day after the conclusion of the seventeenth session of the U.S.-China Human Rights Dialogue, held here in Washington, D.C. I have long been an advocate for human rights in China and sponsored several measures, including two House resolutions focused on two of the issues that we will discuss today. The first was a resolution I put forward in 2007 that expressed, ‘the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of the People's Republic of China should immediately release from custody the children of Rebiya Kadeer.’ The second was a resolution I introduced in 2009, ‘recognizing the continued persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.’
“Both of these measures garnered the overwhelming support of the House and served to underscore the deteriorating human rights situation in China. One must wonder when reading the latest State Department Human Rights Report on China, what value is there in the so-called Human Rights Dialogue that recently concluded? The report, released on May 24th, noted that over the past year: ‘Deterioration in key aspects of the country’s human rights situation continued. Repression and coercion, particularly against organizations and individuals involved in rights advocacy and public interest issues, were routine.’
“Congress was told over a decade ago, as some of my colleagues will recall, that the granting of Permanent Normal Trade Relations – PNTR – to China would lead to economic liberalization and inevitably to greater political freedom. However, Congress was sold a bill of goods back then by the White House and the multinational corporations. PNTR with China has not brought a decline in the human rights abuses in China, including torture and regime-arranged disappearances of dissidents.
“If anything, credible reports from dissidents, internet users, underground churches, the Uyghurs, the people of Tibetan, and North Korean refugees all indicate that things have gotten worse when compared to a decade ago. So PNTR has proven to be no elixir to fix China’s endemic human rights abuses. In 1999, just a year before PNTR was passed, the Chinese regime began its relentless campaign of torture and suppression against the spiritual movement known as Falun Gong. The infamous Six-Ten Office, a security unit as brutal as the KGB, was established at that time to hunt down, persecute, torture, and even kill Falun Gong practitioners.
“We will be hearing from one of our witnesses, Mr. Li today, on that fearsome and ongoing persecution. It is estimated that one quarter to one half of all the detainees in China’s infamous re-education-through-labor camps are Falun Gong practitioners.
“Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, the only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner in the world, once famously said ‘Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity, and the mother of truth.’ Freedom of expression is, of course, completely lacking behind the bamboo curtain in communist China.
“But the tentacles of Chinese security reaches far beyond its own borders – at times, even suppressing first amendment rights to free speech in our own country. The noted Chinese human rights advocate and blind attorney, Mr. Chen Guangcheng, had originally accepted an invitation to appear before this Committee as a witness today. However, he subsequently declined to appear because of his reported fear of reprisal against his family back in China, especially against his nephew who is under arrest.
“We have with us another witness who also left family members back in China. Uyghur democracy advocate Ms. Rebiya Kadeer, here with us today, has had her children severely beaten, imprisoned, and placed under house arrest by security forces. One of those beatings took place in 2006 when a staff delegation from this Committee visited the Uyghur homeland but had to cut short its visit because of the attacks on the Kadeer children.
“Chinese authorities, through torture and coercion, have even forced some of Ms. Kadeer’s children to demonize her in statements accusing her of ‘ethnic splittism.’ These same Chinese authorities also recently forced one of Ms. Kadeer’s sons to sign over her business property in China. Yet, this courageous woman has still come forward to testify before our Committee today.
“Our witnesses will describe for us the particularly harsh repressive measures that are being directed against the Uyghur and the Tibetan peoples. We also will hear of the use of a relatively new weapon in Beijing’s arsenal for human rights repression: that is, the extra-judicial disappearance of noted dissidents.
“In today’s China, one does not need to wear an invisibility cloak in order to suddenly vanish into thin air without formal charges, without a trial, and without due process. Pro bono lawyer and democracy advocate Jared Genser will address the newest draconian methods, which Beijing has implemented to suppress and terrorize its own citizens.
“A Chinese proverb holds that ‘To violate the law is the same crime in the emperor as in the subject.’ But in China today there is no such accountability. A human rights dialogue with the communist regime in Beijing matters for little until the rule of law is genuinely rooted in Chinese soil. Only then will the communist mandarins in Beijing be held accountable for more than a half century of its regime’s crimes. Their litany of suppression includes the mass starvation of the Great Leap Forward, the Red Guard horror of the Cultural Revolution, the bloody massacre at Tiananmen Square, and today’s continued repression of both political dissidents and religious believers.
“Until there is concrete, verifiable, genuine political reform in China, all we should say in our human rights dialogue with Beijing is, ‘Deliver us from evil.’”
La congresista señaló que en China, la represión y la coerción, particularmente contra organizaciones y personas involucradas en la defensa de los derechos humanos y asuntos de interés público son hechos rutinarios.
Ros-Lehtinen dijo que en este país asiático, la tortura, la desaparición de disidentes y la falta de libertad de expresión no son hechos aislados. “La libertad de expresión, por supuesto, se está perdiendo completamente detrás de la cortina de bamboo en la China comunista”, indicó.
La legisladora manifestó que los tentáculos de la seguridad del Estado china algunas veces traspasan sus fronteras, tras mencionar que el activista chino Chen Guangcheng, quien originalmente había aceptado una invitación para declarar hoy ante el Comité de Asuntos Exteriores en Washington declinó hacerlo por temor a represalias contra su familia en China, especialmente contra su sobrino quien se encuentra arrestado.
Entretanto, el secretario de Estado adjunto Michael Posner declaró a la prensa este miércoles, que “nuestro mensaje al gobierno chino es, ustedes han hecho progresos en el frente económico, ha llegado el momento de que abran un espacio para permitir que las personas disientan”.
NEWS
House Foreign Affairs Committee
U.S. House of Representatives
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chairman
CONTACT: Brad Goehner, (202) 225-5021
Alex Cruz (South Florida press), (202) 225-8200
http://foreignaffairs.house.gov
For IMMEDIATE Release – July 25, 2012
Human Rights Conditions in China Continue to Decline, Ros-Lehtinen Says
(WASHINGTON) – U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, made the following opening statement today at a Full Committee hearing titled “Investigating the Chinese Threat, Part Two: Human Rights Abuses, Torture and Disappearances.” The Committee received testimony from prominent dissidents and activists on human rights abuses committed by the Chinese regime. For witness testimony, please click here. Opening statement by Ros-Lehtinen:
“This hearing is called just one day after the conclusion of the seventeenth session of the U.S.-China Human Rights Dialogue, held here in Washington, D.C. I have long been an advocate for human rights in China and sponsored several measures, including two House resolutions focused on two of the issues that we will discuss today. The first was a resolution I put forward in 2007 that expressed, ‘the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of the People's Republic of China should immediately release from custody the children of Rebiya Kadeer.’ The second was a resolution I introduced in 2009, ‘recognizing the continued persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.’
“Both of these measures garnered the overwhelming support of the House and served to underscore the deteriorating human rights situation in China. One must wonder when reading the latest State Department Human Rights Report on China, what value is there in the so-called Human Rights Dialogue that recently concluded? The report, released on May 24th, noted that over the past year: ‘Deterioration in key aspects of the country’s human rights situation continued. Repression and coercion, particularly against organizations and individuals involved in rights advocacy and public interest issues, were routine.’
“Congress was told over a decade ago, as some of my colleagues will recall, that the granting of Permanent Normal Trade Relations – PNTR – to China would lead to economic liberalization and inevitably to greater political freedom. However, Congress was sold a bill of goods back then by the White House and the multinational corporations. PNTR with China has not brought a decline in the human rights abuses in China, including torture and regime-arranged disappearances of dissidents.
“If anything, credible reports from dissidents, internet users, underground churches, the Uyghurs, the people of Tibetan, and North Korean refugees all indicate that things have gotten worse when compared to a decade ago. So PNTR has proven to be no elixir to fix China’s endemic human rights abuses. In 1999, just a year before PNTR was passed, the Chinese regime began its relentless campaign of torture and suppression against the spiritual movement known as Falun Gong. The infamous Six-Ten Office, a security unit as brutal as the KGB, was established at that time to hunt down, persecute, torture, and even kill Falun Gong practitioners.
“We will be hearing from one of our witnesses, Mr. Li today, on that fearsome and ongoing persecution. It is estimated that one quarter to one half of all the detainees in China’s infamous re-education-through-labor camps are Falun Gong practitioners.
“Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, the only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner in the world, once famously said ‘Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity, and the mother of truth.’ Freedom of expression is, of course, completely lacking behind the bamboo curtain in communist China.
“But the tentacles of Chinese security reaches far beyond its own borders – at times, even suppressing first amendment rights to free speech in our own country. The noted Chinese human rights advocate and blind attorney, Mr. Chen Guangcheng, had originally accepted an invitation to appear before this Committee as a witness today. However, he subsequently declined to appear because of his reported fear of reprisal against his family back in China, especially against his nephew who is under arrest.
“We have with us another witness who also left family members back in China. Uyghur democracy advocate Ms. Rebiya Kadeer, here with us today, has had her children severely beaten, imprisoned, and placed under house arrest by security forces. One of those beatings took place in 2006 when a staff delegation from this Committee visited the Uyghur homeland but had to cut short its visit because of the attacks on the Kadeer children.
“Chinese authorities, through torture and coercion, have even forced some of Ms. Kadeer’s children to demonize her in statements accusing her of ‘ethnic splittism.’ These same Chinese authorities also recently forced one of Ms. Kadeer’s sons to sign over her business property in China. Yet, this courageous woman has still come forward to testify before our Committee today.
“Our witnesses will describe for us the particularly harsh repressive measures that are being directed against the Uyghur and the Tibetan peoples. We also will hear of the use of a relatively new weapon in Beijing’s arsenal for human rights repression: that is, the extra-judicial disappearance of noted dissidents.
“In today’s China, one does not need to wear an invisibility cloak in order to suddenly vanish into thin air without formal charges, without a trial, and without due process. Pro bono lawyer and democracy advocate Jared Genser will address the newest draconian methods, which Beijing has implemented to suppress and terrorize its own citizens.
“A Chinese proverb holds that ‘To violate the law is the same crime in the emperor as in the subject.’ But in China today there is no such accountability. A human rights dialogue with the communist regime in Beijing matters for little until the rule of law is genuinely rooted in Chinese soil. Only then will the communist mandarins in Beijing be held accountable for more than a half century of its regime’s crimes. Their litany of suppression includes the mass starvation of the Great Leap Forward, the Red Guard horror of the Cultural Revolution, the bloody massacre at Tiananmen Square, and today’s continued repression of both political dissidents and religious believers.
“Until there is concrete, verifiable, genuine political reform in China, all we should say in our human rights dialogue with Beijing is, ‘Deliver us from evil.’”
